


four seasons beyond armageddon

by internationalprincess



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-13 23:08:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/internationalprincess/pseuds/internationalprincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end (or maybe the beginning) it was just the two of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	four seasons beyond armageddon

~  
too early for sun  
to warm my bones, but there's a  
taste of spring in you.  
~

In the end (or maybe the beginning) it was just the two of them.

There were whispered words at the outskirts of (the former) Sunnydale, and decisions must have been made. She didn't remember much of it later, but they parted company. She has a sort of dusty picture in her memory, hugging Dawn goodbye on a roadside somewhere, Faith leading the others away.

Giles put her in a car and took her to a quiet hotel in the desert. Rehab, she suspected, given the preponderance of dark sunglasses and the lack of questions. She paid little attention (slipped between cool, thin sheets), and slept for days.

Now and again, she opened her eyes to see him sitting in the overstuffed armchair in the corner of her room. He was always reading, rarely looked up when she stirred. At other times (weak sunlight creeping through wooden blinds), he fed her thick vegetable soup, and iced tea through a straw.

It took her three weeks to come back to herself, and he never left her side.

When she felt strong enough, she asked about the others. He told her stories slowly, about Faith and Dawn in New York, Willow in Berlin. Xander, on his way to Vancouver. One afternoon (quietly, while looking out the window) he mentioned they were near Los Angeles, and then his voice trailed off.

She placed her hand on his arm and assured him she didn't need to see Angel (though perhaps she meant Spike).

"He has things to do," she said seriously, "and so do I."

He turned to look at her, the sun behind him bathing his features in warm shadows. She pressed one palm to the side of his face, skin overheated beneath her touch. There was a moment of choked inaction, teetering on a precipice, and then she propelled herself forward in a single swift movement, reaching for the buttons at the neck of his shirt and pressing her mouth to his.

When he pushed inside her, he gasped, "I never wanted this to happen."

She wept into his shoulder.

~  
sweat slides down my spine  
as your cool fingers slide up.  
I'm the heat of you.  
~

She wanted to fly to Hong Kong, but he was adamant. She had to understand how to get around the world in other ways, without the benefit of money or connections. She arched an eyebrow at him (goading him about his post-apocalyptic pessimism), but she paid attention. They trained together on the deck of the ship in the baking mid-day sun.

At night she scandalized him by dragging him from their tiny cabin to make love outside, pressed up against the side of a container, out of sight of the bridge. Moonlight cast her features in sharp relief and he told her she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

She hated the humidity (complained incessantly), and eyed the Peninsula as he insisted they stay somewhere less expensive. He took the ferry to the Island each morning, immersing himself in ancient Chinese texts with the help of a translator. She slept all day, and spent the nights prowling the back alleys of Tsim Sha Tsui with two young slayers recently arrived from Shenzhen.

She came home sweaty and dirty, and she climbed atop him without preamble, biting hungrily at his neck, the impossible heat of her raising the already unbearable temperature in the room. So much so that she couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Just this blinding lava and his guttural groans.

They were out of synch.

They fought about small things. Her use of an ancient parchment as a coaster, whether the air conditioner was too loud to have on while sleeping, his discovery of a hipflask of scotch in her underwear drawer.

"You're not my father!" she was prone to yelling, because in the end, he was.

Because it made him all the more uncomfortable when she pushed him back against the wall with one hand (unbuckling his belt with the other), tasting the sweat beading on his collarbone.

She picked up few words of Cantonese. "This isn't a cultural exchange," she growled at him, when he suggested she try. "I'm here to help these girls get on their feet, and then I'm moving on."

She never said 'we'. He didn't mention it again.

The night one of the girls died, she got so drunk she had trouble finding the hotel. He was sitting on the edge of the bed with the lights off as she stumbled into the room, and she wondered absently if he'd been there all night. When she reached for him, he flinched.

His eyes flashed dangerously. "The world isn't ending, Buffy," he murmured, "You have to stop living as if it is."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she snapped, slamming the bottle she was holding down beside the television.

"We can't keep..." he sighed, and her stomach turned. She thought she might throw up.

"I can't keep doing this," he managed after a moment.

She stubbed her toe on the corner of the coffee table as she stormed from the room, sucked in her breath hard and held it to stop from crying out. The sharp pain made tears stand up in her eyes. She slammed the door (so hard it splintered) and didn't let out her breath until she was down the stairs and out on the street.

She didn't look back.

~  
separation chills.  
I pull your snug fit around  
me, though you're not here.  
~

Some part of her still thinks he'll follow.

Faith doesn't comment when she shows up at the low-rent apartment in Brooklyn, and that suits her just fine. Faith has never been the sort of girlfriend to offer Ben & Jerry's and chick flicks on DVD.

"You look like shit, B," she says, appraisingly. "Let's go kick the crap out of something."

For six weeks in a row they drink vodka straight from the bottle, dance in clubs that mimic the end of the world, hunt until daybreak.

Giles doesn't call.

She wears a pair of Faith's leather boots, and a coat some slayer-in-training has abandoned over the back of the sofa. It's the first time she's been out during the day in over a month, and she's struck by the fact that the leaves have turned without her noticing.

There are no colors at night.

She sits on the rim of an empty fountain, and tugs the coat around her. Small children in bright woollen hats and scarves dash past her, and she feels an emptyness expand in her chest, making it hard to breathe.

A yellow school bus drives by the park, and she thinks that fall should be about optimism. Beginnings. Freshly sharpened pencils, new school clothes, the blank pages of notebooks. Instead she's trying to teach teenage girls the basics of staying alive (seven different ways to stab someone, the merits of arnica for bruises, not to mourn each other when they fall).

Faith comes out of their building and crosses the street to the park. She's not long out of bed, her eyes are bloodshot, and it seems the pair of them are resembling their prey more every day.

"I'm tired of this," Faith says without preamble. "Either we go and find him, or you get your head out of your ass and get over him."

"There's nothing to get over," she lies, thrusting a crumpled letter at Faith, and getting to her feet. "Willow says we need to get moving."

They leave that night.

~  
too much time alone  
creeps over my heart like a  
glacier. slow ice.  
~

They'll be in the London house for nearly a month, and she'll count the days in her head and think it's time to move on. The water will be scalding hot, but the pressure weak and her skin will be covered in goosebumps. She'll keep turning (submerging), but the steam won't heat the room, and she'll give up, leaning with one shoulder pressed against the cold tile.

She'll wash her hair with some sort of purple shower gel, one of a collection of bottles Faith dumps out of her rucksack one night telling her that they both need to "quit smelling like fucking death".

She will think that they've both fucked death at one time or another, but she won't say it.

As it is, there'll be a rusty tide mark around the tub (blood, dirt, possibly actual rust), so she'll figure Faith isn't far from wrong.

Around one toned ankle she'll wear a tiny silver anklet he bought her in Mumbai. She'll have found it wrapped in tissue under an ancient sword she will use to take the head off a demon. The anklet has tiny bells, and will chime inappropriately anytime she kicks something. She won't take it off.

It will be the week before Christmas, and everywhere she turns there will be decorated trees, hanging lights, crowded streets. All the people around her will sound like him. The Christmas single at the top of the charts will be an out-of-character cover of a song from the eighties, and her mouth will twist into a wry grin every time she hears it.

Three new girls will arrive at the house on Christmas Eve and Dawn will be with them. They'll try for a sort of festive spirit, with tinsel wrapped around the television set and pre-cooked turkey from the local Tesco.

"We don't know where he is, " Dawn will say, though she won't have asked. "He sent Willow some books a few weeks ago, but there was no letter. No return address."

She'll leave them after dinner (tugging a coarse scarf around her neck that once belonged to him), sliding out the back door, boots crunching in the snow.

The vampire will try and overpower her in an alley behind Euston station. The fight will be drawn out, because her muscles will be cold and she'll find it hard to see through her tears. There'll be a moment (as long as forever, as short as a heartbeat) where he'll almost get the better of her. And in that instant, she'll find the same song playing in her head.

'I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad. These dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had.'

The vampire will wear glasses and speak with an English accent.

She will kiss him on the mouth, stake him, and walk away.


End file.
